Why you shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane.John Blake headed towards the docks. Apparently, the CIA had finally got a man inside Gotham. Only took them three months.
Gordon said he was too busy to deal with it, having to keep his family safe, so John waited.
A single small boat, tied to shore, stood defiantly against the empty river of Gotham.
Standing aboard, his hands clutching his belt, was a blue shirted man, wearing Khaki pants.
As he approached, he noticed the burn scars running down his face.
"CIA? I'm John Blake."
The man, known only as CIA to the resistance, nodded.
"I came alone."
This surprised John. One man, alone, in the streets of Gotham? Wouldn't the CIA send in a special ops unit or something? Not a single burnt man.
"Ugh... you could've bring friends."
CIA rolled his eyes.
"Don't worry. No charge for me."
"And why would we want just one man?"
CIA Glared at John, his anger intense behind the scars.
"Bane grabbed my Prize. I don't work with the CIA anymore."
"Alone?"
CIA nodded.
So this burnt man, without any outside help, got into the most well guarded city on the planet, because he had some kind of personal vendetta with Bane?
John thought this through. The bomb could go off any day now, and food was getting scarce. The mercenaries were getting harsher and there was no telling how long the police force would last underneath the city.
"Climb ashore, I'll call Gordon."
4U4U4U4U4U4U4U4U4U
The three men sat in a cellar beneath a house in the former narrows. It was here in rooms like this all over the city, that the resistance met up. One day, the Dark Knight would return to Gotham. Until that day, men like Blake and Gordon would wait in the dark like him, waiting for their time to strike.
"So... The CIA has abandoned us."
Gordon sighed, rubbing his glasses clean as he did so.
"I don't know. As far as they know, I've been dead for 8 months." Said CIA.
"Dead?" Asked Blake.
"What makes one man sail to the most dangerous city on Earth proclaiming to represent the CIA."
CIA's gaze hardened once more. He seemed to grow in that moment. No longer cold from the days of sailing, or fearful of being caught en route to the safe house, he seemed to grow into a much bigger guy.
"8 months ago, in a country... I can't even remember where. We were sent to grab a nuclear physicist who was wanted by the local government. They had paid a mercenary quite a sum of money to capture this man, but when he arrived, our local man had caught three of his soldiers. It all seemed to good to be true." Said CIA. He moved his hand around in a peculiar fashion as he talked, waving it around with careless abandon.
"It was. Two of the men were just some of his goons, but the third..." CIA gulped.
"I still remember the moment. I took of the hood... the mask. And beneath it, only a colder one still. For a moment, I dared not talk... Nor breath. I was staring at the devil himself."
"Bane." Said John.
"Aye." CIA replied. "He crashed my plane. Killed my men. I... I didn't die. The plane dropped like a rock for 10km, but I didn't die. I crawled out of the wreckage... And yet... I didn't die. I screamed. I cried. I swore and shouted. But I didn't die." Said CIA.
Both John and Gordon were listening intently. They couldn't tell if CIA was a madman or just... Broken.
"Smee... Maiman... Butten Lee... Even Juan Ovyou. All died in the crash. But I lived. They were my men, and I failed them. I couldn't see the obvious signs... We were all blinded by the hunt for Bane. The Pilots were blind to the radar, my men and myself to the noise of that much larger plane above... But I couldn't see an obvious trap for what it was."
"So... you crawled out of burning plane... Spent 8 months underground... faking your death, making your way to Gotham... For what?"
CIA looked up at Gordon as he spoke.
"Bane."
UUUU
In the 2 winter months since CIA had joined the resistance, it had turned from men tracking a single truck to a fully fledge fighting force.
Initially, CIA was willing to sit back and wait, but when he heard of how Doctor Pavel had died at Bane's hands, his fury turned into work.
The Resistance handed out food to the hungry, shelter to the downtrodden, and guns to the enraged.
Suicide squads roamed the streets. To few to make Bane or the mysterious Triggerman set off the bomb, but enough to scare the mercenary army.
Drivers used what little petrol they had to bring supplies across the city, keeping the people alive, spreading hope.
JUST a few knew of CIA's existence. He wanted as few people as possible to know who he was and that he was alive. He feared what would happen if Bane knew. John doubted Bane had a second thought about the angry agent, but CIA had insisted.
"Into the trash it goes" soon became a rallying cry. One of CIA's silly ideas was to actually deal with the enormous amounts of garbage piling in the streets. It wasn't entirely clear, until disease and rat infestations began to drop rapidly. He had even suggested to start farming the rats. After all, the dogs and cats had been eaten months before.
For such a little guy, CIA caste a large shadow. Soon, myths and legends of "The Agent" Began to spread. Slowly at first. But soon it sparked a fire within the hearts of the people. Where once men had chanted of the batman, their savour who had been fighting crime for maybe a year and a half, disappeared for nine years then showed up twice, then disappeared again, they whisper of the Agent of the morning.
Given 7 months, some more covert support from the government and CIA's leadership, they might have overthrown Bane.
They didn't have that long.
As Gordon and John were escorted to their death by exile, he had appeared.
As the men collapsed from punches that didn't seem to actually connect, CIA had arrived.
He stared at the man in black armor, his face being squeezed like a tangerine in that mask, and CIA struck his pose.
"Batman. I'm CIA."
"We haven't much time." Batman growled, barely understandably.
"Ugh... You don't get to bring a climactic end to this story."
John, even as he collected the guns off the mercs and shot them in the head whilst Batman was distracted, couldn't help shake the fact that every time someone meet CIA for the first time the conversation seemed to go the same way.
2X2xU
Batman fell to the floor, wheezing badly. Bane had winded him badly, attacking his weak knee that not even his weird unexplained magic leg brace could protect against.
Bane picked up a shotgun.
He began his rant. Talissa had wanted Batman to witness the nuclear holocaust that she had planned for Gotham.
Bane had over ideas. He pointed the shotgun at his head.
"You'll just have to imagin..."
A gun shot rang out in the hall.
Bane fell onto his right knee, his knee cap blown off from behind.
Bruce looked up and saw him. The burnt man.
"That is why you shoot a man before you throw him out of a plane!" CIA Shouted out.
Bruce studied Bane's face as he turned around. Surprise, shock and genuine fear was shown in his eyes.
"No... I'm in charge..."
Bane breathed deep into his mask and stood up wearily.
"So... We meet again Bane."
"How... You..."
"For 8 months I dreamt of nothing but taking that mask of your terrible face. Of making you feel the extreme pain I do. You left me to die!"
Batman looked around awkwardly. Did his climatic fight with Bane get interrupted by a lover's tiff.
"They expected one of us in the wreckage." Said Bane.
Bane raised his fists.
To Batman's shock, CIA dropped his gun and raised his own.
"So... No more Masks. I, Bill Wilson, of the CIA, sentence you to death."
"You're getting hot headed. You can't take me. You are not strong enough."
CIA grinned.
"Maybe... For you!"
He threw his fist, hard and fast, straight into Bane's mask.